Supervision

Supervision:

I am a BACP Senior Accredited Supervisor. 

I offer: Art Psychotherapy supervision, Counselling supervision, eco-supervision, and consultative support - for individuals / groups of qualified practitioners and students, including:

Beach
County Antrim beach. Photograph (c) CS

I have many years experience (25+ years) of providing clinical supervision for practitioners and professionals across a wide range of organisational and private practice settings. I have training in the provision of counselling and art therapy supervision. This includes using sandtray and other creative and play approaches in supervision.

I have particular specialist expertise in supervising practitioners working with:

My teaching includes curriculum design and tutoring on a post qualifying Certificate in Clinical Supervision (CPCAB Level 6 ) and I have also designed and led a one year Supervision Praxis training internationally. I have researched the supervision of school counselling.

My supervision practice is normally fully booked, but you are still welcome to make enquiries about supervision or consultative support.

Eco Supervision

I also offer eco-supervision. In eco-supervision, the natural environment is the wider reflexive and containing space and Nature can be a co-supervisor.  Sensing out the “affordances” offered by the environment (Gibson, 1966, 1979), the supervisee and supervisor explore the reflexive opportunities encountered in the natural setting.  This "implies the complementarity of "the person and the environment." (Gibson, 1979: 127). There are opportunities for "environ-mentalization" (Sibbett, 2000, 2001, 2017); attuning with the relational cues and developing a reciprocal caring relationship with Nature. An aim is to promote caring reciprocal relationship with the rest of nature and "the more-than-human world" (Abram, 1996). My work is also informed by the concept of "eARTherapy" (Sibbett, 1996) - an approach promoting eco-creativity. 

Writing about the global challenges that we face and supervision in the helping professions, Hawkins and Shohet (2012: 10) advocate:

"What is needed is a major transformation in human consciousness, ways of thinking, behaving and relating, both to each other and 'the more than human world' (Abrams, 1996)."

Supervision

 Supervision approach

My supervision approach is informed by diverse theories, including:

Hawkins and Shohet (2012) proposed a model of supervision that features seven Modes. This is a systemic model of supervision that “views the work of supervision as ‘nested’ in increasing wider systemic levels” (Hawkins & Shohet, 2012: 105). The seven Modes are:

  Supervisee-Client matrix:

    1. Client - how & what they present.

    2. Exploration of therapist skills & strategies; how, when, why.

    3. Exploration of therapy relationship.

  Supervisor-Supervisee matrix:

    4. Supervisee: how affected by work; their development & support.

    5. Supervisory relationship: Quality of working alliance; Parallel process: here-&-now.as parallel of there-&-then.

    6. Supervisor’s process / countertransference.

    7. Wider / organisational requirements; ethics; systemic influences.

My supervision practice encompasses, and holds in reverence, "the more-than-human world" (Abram, 1996) - the interconnected commonwealth of earthly life. This is consistent with Hawkins and Shohet's assertion that:

"We strongly agree that supervision should not be reduced to the human and material realms, but should also be open to the ‘more than human world’ (Abrams 1996) (sic) and should ‘create the space for grace’ (Hawkins and Smith 2006)." (Hawkins & Shohet, 2012: 110).

Writing about their seven Mode model, Hawkins and Shohet add:

"... we philosophically oppose the idea that the transpersonal should be a separate transcendent realm, but rather that the spiritual and transpersonal have an important immanent place in all of the seven modes. In Mode 1 we should attend to the personal and transpersonal aspects of the client presented, and in Mode 4 the transpersonal aspects of the supervisee. In Modes 3 and 5 we should consider the transpersonal aspects of the relationships and what is emerging in the space between the parties that transcends both. In Mode 6 as supervisor we should be open to what is emerging not only from within our psychological being but from other levels of being, and in Mode 7 the wider context includes realms beyond human and material.” (Hawkins & Shohet, 2012: 110).

References

Abram, D. (1996) The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Random House.Abram, D. (2011) Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Vintage. Denise, S. (2009) Training for supervising transpersonal therapists and others. In: P. Henderson (ed.) Supervisor Training: Issues and Approaches. London: Karnac.Gibson, J.J. (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. London: Allen and Unwin.Gibson, J.J. (1979) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), Boston.Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (2012) Supervision in the helping professions. (4th ed). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.Hawkins, P. and Smith, N. (2006) Coaching, Mentoring and Organizational Consultancy: Supervision and Development. Maidenhead: Open University Press.